Re: Numbers and math
| From: | Yoon Ha Lee <yl112@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, September 21, 2000, 19:43 |
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On Thu, 21 Sep 2000, Marcus Smith wrote:
> taliesin the storyteller wrote:
>
> >Generalizing:
> > - do you form ordinals from cardinals? how? if not, how?
> > - do you have a zero?
>
> You can't count something that isn't there! Are you crazy? ;-)
>
> > - can numbers be negative?
>
> Who ever heard of a negative number? That just means you have a positive
> number in the other direction. You don't have -2 bowls, you owe others 2
> bowls.
[snip]
ROTFL! Alas, my current project involves a culture where theoretical
math is decently well-developed--basic calculus and logarithms and other
nifty useful things. Not nearly as fun as an alternate math-culture, though.
YHL